Social Justice Warriors Always Double Down

800 words

Vox Day
SJWs Always Double Down: Anticipating the Thought Police
Castalia House, 2017

Following up on his well-received first book on Social Justice Warriors, Vox Day published the second book of what is likely to be a trilogy early last month. Called SJWs Always Double Down (SJWADD), it draws its title from the three laws of Social Justice which Vox laid out in his first book: 

1. SJWs Always Lie
2. SJWs Always Double Down
3. SJWs Always Project

I have a reasonable guess as to what the third book will be called, but I’ll keep my thoughts to myself.

Like SJWs Always Lie (SJWAL), SJWADD is a practical book, and in form, follows very closely in its predecessor’s path. Through a combination of real-world examples and generalized patterns, both books attempt to inform those unfamiliar with Social Justice about the nature of its advocates, and to those more experienced, provide a concrete framework for how Social Justice Warriors go about their work. Just as SJWAL featured an 8-step attack sequence against individuals, SJWADD also centers around an 8-step attack sequence, this time against institutions:

1. Infiltration
2. Reinforcement
3. Seize the high ground
4. Push for inclusivity
5. Target the dissidents (see attack sequence)
6. Expel the infidels
7. Milk the cow
8. Evade the blame

These concrete sequences has the benefit of being true and useful in orienting yourself if you happen to find yourself or your institution under assault by today’s would-be omnipotent moral busybodies.

Unfortunately, the similarities extend to one problem with SJWAL which appeared again in SJWADD, and that is Vox Day’s tendency to talk about himself. The recurring problem is all the more frustrating for his acknowledging of the issue as a “common criticism” in his introduction, saying, “I frequently use myself and the SJWs I have personally encountered as examples, not because I am narcissistic or settling any personal vendettas, but because those are the situations I know sufficiently well to describe in detail.”

For having “written the book on rhetoric,” this did not strike me as being particularly persuasive, or likely to be persuasive to casual readers. I had loaned my physical copy of SJWAL to a family member who worked in academia, in hopes that he might find some of the principles useful. In the end he did, even forwarding some page-scans to colleagues who were under fire, but it was difficult for him to find totally compelling because the section about John Scalzi made Day seem like a jerk. It should not be terribly difficult for an author — especially one as smart and technologically savvy as Day — to do the research and learn about other situations well enough to describe them in a book.

Fortunately, Day’s own experiences are less of a centerpiece in SJWADD. The book features a magnificently vicious email sequence from an unknown SJW (but whose voice is suspiciously reminiscent of Randi Harper) to an open-source code project-manager; the decline and fall of a Lutheran church in the suburbs of Minneapolis; a thorough account of the James Damore meltdown, and other interesting and amusing anecdotes of Social Justice convergence. These stories are often familiar — in form, if not in detail — to veterans of GamerGate and to the Alt Right, but they are often less familiar, or only peripherally familiar, to the less politically involved reader. As Day points out early in the book, the zenith of SJW antics was in 2015. In 2016 and after the rise of the God Emperor, even a regular viewer of mainstream television news is at least acquainted with events in which normal people are publicly slaughtered by SJWs. They may not know them by name, but average Americans are learning what a Social Justice Warrior is.

For the veterans of Social Justice tactics, there are technical aspects which Vox Day introduces, namely a breakdown of the psychology of Social Justice Warriors, as well as a rather technical and exhausting list of logical fallacies and strategies that they often utilize. SJWAL broadly avoided the task of psychoanalyzing leftists, so the fact that Vox opted to take on the job here suggests that the third and final book in the series might address the question of how we might attempt to cure people of this brain cancer.

On the whole, SJWs Always Double Down is an informative and practical book. But it is not a classic like SJWs Always Lie, and, in my opinion, is not a “must-read” for ordinary people going to work and school in the way that SJWAL was. But for activists and those of us more deeply involved in protecting, recapturing, and re-forging institutions of Western Culture, its insights are unique, clear, and actionable. And as more people get smart to the fact that Social Justice Warriors always lie, the number of culture guardians may grow much larger in the near future.